16. 02. 2023

• Where is the information from?    
  
• Russian plans in details  
  
• How to respond?

• Russia's „invisible hand“
  

• Illegal Army of Ghosts

• What to do? 

• Kadyrov says Russia has still not used its full military potential in Ukraine
  
• Russian weatherman blends weather with war  
  
• EEAS publishes its first Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Threats  
  

On February 13 the President of Moldova, Maya Sandu, said that Russia was planning a coup d'état in the country, and disclosed some details. According to her, Russia plans to stage a coup d'état in Moldova and change the government in Chisinau with the help of opposition protests. Sandu also mentioned documents from Ukraine. President Zelenskyy stated that Ukrainian intelligence intercepted Russian plans to destroy the political situation in Moldova. The Intelligence and Security Service of Moldova confirmed the receipt of information from Ukrainian intelligence about Russia's plans to destroy the political situation in the country.

"The documents received from our Ukrainian partners indicate the locations and logistical aspects of the organization of this subversive activity. The plan also involves the use of foreigners for violent acts. For example, the materials contain instructions on the rules of entry to Moldova for citizens of Russia, Belarus, Serbia, and Montenegro," said the President of Moldova. State security agencies are currently working to prevent these provocations. Maia Sandu noted that Russia is counting on some internal forces in its plan, in particular on the pro-Russian party "Shor", some veterans, former law enforcement officers, and people known for their connections with oligarch Vlad Plahotniuk. The President of Moldovaemphasized that Moscow's goal is to "overthrow the constitutional and legitimate government in Chisinau with an illegitimate" pro-Russian one. And this will allow Russia to "stop the process of European integration of the republic and use Moldova in the war against Ukraine." In addition, according to Sandu, it is not the first time that Moscow wants to destabilize the situation in Moldova. In particular, such attempts were made in the fall of 2022, but then the security authorities intervened.

On February 11, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, said that Russia was creating a point of tension in Moldova. Danilov stated that Chechen fighters who may try to infiltrate Moldova are currently working as "rescuers" from Russia in Turkey. "I can say that some of those scum who were part of the so-called Chechen group here on our territory on February 24-25-26 is currently working as "rescuers" in Turkey. We are monitoring this situation very carefully so that it does not happen that these "rescuers" end up in Chisinau. We know their surnames, first names, and patronymics. They had a personal task from February 24," Danilov said.

Moldova is currently strengthening the power block as much as possible. On February 10, the Prime Minister of Moldova, Natalia Havrylytsia, resigned. According to the country's Constitution, in such a case, the entire government is also abolished. Maia Sandu proposes the current secretary of the High-Security Council of Moldova, Dorin Rechan, for the mentioned position. This demonstrates that Moldova's security considerations are on air. From this perspective, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova should support the proposal from the President of Moldova and vote for a security professional as a new Prime Minister of Moldova.

The Wagner Group is a covert Russian network consisting of military companies, political influence operations, and a brutal "private" military force that serves multiple purposes for the Russian government. One of these purposes is to divert attention from activities that the Kremlin wants to keep hidden. Despite the fact, that private military organizations are illegal in Russia, the group gained legal status and official headquarters in St. Petersburg, which some analysts see as a sign of power politics. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, claimed on social media that his group took over the entire territory of Soledar, which transformed the group from a shadowy force to a well-established auxiliary group in the war.

Some soldiers in the Wagner Group are extremist, right-wing supporters, and they are the only forces that Putin can rely on to get the job done in a completely brutal way. Although Russian President Putin denies links between Russia and the Wagner Group, the group can help the Kremlin on the battlefield by propping up authoritarian rulers while perpetuating corruption and human rights violations. The Wagner Group is brutal, depraved of any morals, and kills the Ukrainian army and citizens.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin, who is also known as "Putin's chef," (thanks to lucrative contracts to provide catering services for the Russian military) makes the leadership of Wagner Group with one of its founders, Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian military intelligence officer. Prigozhin has also been linked to the Internet Research Agency, commonly referred to as the "Russian Troll Factory," and has been dubbed the "King of Dislikes." Therefore, due to allegations of fraud and deceit to interfere with the US political and electoral process, Prigozhin and other Russians have been indicted by the US government, and his companies have been placed under sanctions.

The soldiers of the Wagner Group are comprised of military veterans, prisoners, and others primarily recruited from Russia. The group functions as a key instrument in Russia's global strategy, employing three primary tactics: targeting nations with weak governance or corruption, operating as a vanguard in those nations, and exploiting economic resources for strategic gain. The group has operated in no fewer than 18 different countries across Africa and other continents and has traded weapons and training for access to valuable resources such as oil, gold, uranium, and diamonds. Wagner Group also used Africa as an operational training ground to understand its capability. Initially shrouded in secrecy, the activities of the Wagner Group were brought to public attention in 2014 when they dispatched soldiers to the Crimea, clad in unmarked green uniforms. This tactic garnered the group the nickname "Little Green Men." After the annexation of Crimea, some of the soldiers were transported to the Donbas region, where they helped the pro-Russian forces destabilize the local government, dismantle their security forces, and take control of ammunition and weapons stores. Also weeks before Putin launched his invasion, the group flew 400 soldiers to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Since the spring of 2022, the group has been indispensable for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. After the Russian offensive stalled in May 2022, the Wagner Group managed to take the town of Popasna, paving the way for the Russian army to take several strategic cities. Recently, the group has been fighting for the eastern city of Bakhmut, and Russian propaganda has been amplifying its importance. The goal of the Wagner Group is to secure as much territory as possible and to be seen as a solution to the conflict and then have more power to negotiate their position in the future. The Wagner Group may also be responsible for the Bucha massacre.

The UK's defense ministry has said that Wagner Group forces have appeared to have advanced 2-3 km around the north of Bakhmut since 7.2.2023. This is seen as a rapid push in a battle where frontlines have barely moved for months. The group has been losing about 10-15% of its fighters on an average mission in Ukraine as dead or wounded. Therefore, they need more men. The estimated number of current mercenaries could be around 50 000. The mercenaries of the Wagner Group are primarily motivated by money. The soldiers also have received Russian passports, so they can travel within Russia and to countries where Putin needs dirty work done more freely. The soldiers cannot use the internet or their cell phones.

Despite the Kremlin's persistent denials of any affiliation with the Wagner Group, this mercenary army is an effective military force that is funded and controlled by the Kremlin. In contemporary times, the Wagner Group is easily identifiable and it is no longer a shadow player. Therefore, the Western world must exercise caution regarding the group's possible future actions, particularly as the Wagner Group is also recruiting in Central and Western Europe. Thus, Western nations must continue their supply of weapons and provide aircraft combats to Ukraine.

The Wagner Group should not exist, as its activities are illicit and illegal. The group employs terror tactics and brutality during its missions. Following the European Union's identification of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, the Wagner Group even sent a sledgehammer to the European Parliament, further demonstrating its willingness to engage in egregious behavior. Overall, the Wagner Group is a company with a singular purpose: to carry out the wishes of Putin and his allies without accountability.

Notorious Kremlin-installed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who recently surprisingly accused European countries of failing to support the unrecognized Ichkeria in the 1990s, has stated in an interview broadcast on Rossiya-1 channel that Russia still hasn't started anything. According to him, if Russia employed its full military might, there would be no inhabited Ukrainian cities left in the country: “If we started even at least 20%, then all these cities and places where they are deployed, there would be nothing left of that”, - Kadyrov said.

Kadyrov’s bizarre claims are simply ridiculous since Russia - a country that has been engaged in the war for almost a year, announcing partial mobilization in September last year - is now experiencing a significant amount of casualties and a shortage of military personnel, as well as armament. On top of that, there have been widespread debates on Russia starting the second wave of mobilization, after unsuccessful attempts to take control of any new regional capital city in Ukraine.

Even more, experts are saying that Russia is fully committed to Ukraine - according to British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, 97% of the Russian army is now present in the country, while at the same time, their combat effectiveness is depleted by 40%. Besides, Oryx (an open-source intelligence website) estimates that Russia has lost at least 1,500 tanks, which is nearly half of the operational tanks it had ready before the invasion.

Not only the mobilization or losses on the battlefield showcase that Russia is all in, using its maximum power, but also the social well-being that significantly worsened after starting the full-scale invasion - that is, according to Levada Center, “sharpest decline in what it refers to as social well-being indicators in its more than 30-year history”.

During the early phase of Russian aggression, namely in 2014, a state television channel Rossiya 24 weatherman Vadim Zavodchenkov told protesters in Ukraine that they risked cancer from inhaling burning tire smoke. People warming themselves by burning car tires should realize they contain carcinogens and are classified as "grade-four dangerous goods", he claimed back then. Even before that, in 2013, the same weatherman blamed wintry weather for pro-European Union street protests in Ukraine. Trying to back up this hypothesis, Zavodchenkov said that Columbia's "University research shows that bad weather incites people to conflict." It seems that the Russian propaganda machine has not sophisticated its techniques, with today, a new weatherman, Evgeny Tishkovets taking the role of Zavodchenkov.

“As far as our weather, everything is calm here, more or less” - this is how Evgeny Tishkovets, the Russian weatherman, recently described the weather in Russia on Solovyov’s live broadcast. But Tishkovets’a genuine weather forecasts getextreme when Solovyov is angry with either Russia’s other unsuccessful attack in Ukraine or with his production team that does not care if the show is not streaming live on Telegram. A few days ago, during one of such episodes, the weatherman, comforting angry Solovyov, came up with fist-fighting tips - after Solovyov's proposal to bomb London, Tishkovets concurred, saying “From my youth, I remember that during the fight you need to knock out the main guy, the most brazen and the biggest one. That should be the first thing to do.”

"They are masters of that. They invest a lot. They use thousands of people and they do that in a systematic, permanent, and industrialized manner. That's a weapon… all our delegations will be equipped with experts on countering disinformation in many parts of the world to make our voice be heard better," Josep Borrell said at a public conference on disinformation in Brussels.

His speech was followed by the release of the first edition of the report on Foreign information Manipulation and Interference Threats by the European External Action Service (EEAS). The report analyses 100 disinformation pieces detected between October and December 2022, from which the Russian propaganda machine was involved in 88 cases. The report reveals that such incidents were featured in at least 30 languages, mostly aiming to redirect attention or pin blame on others.

According to the report, a major focus of recent Russian disinformation campaigns has been on Ukraine, attempting to blame the Ukrainian government and its Western counterparts for starting the offensive. The report gives further information about the methods and tactics that Russia and China use to manipulate information. See the full report here.

Karolína Mrázková – Dmytro Filonenko – Mariam Lashkhia

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